The Luck of Pups
by HarTay2022
Summary: After the events from the movie, Lucky is startled awake by a bad dream about Cruella, who else? He seeks comfort in his brother, Patch and talks about his fear; but is there something else that is bothering the young pup? And can Patch make things better? NO SLASH!


**This story takes place right after the first animated film, the night that all of the Dalmatians returned home. **

**Just a heads up, like in the movie, "pet" refers to the humans. I thought that since they call their humans their "pets," "kennels" could be referred to as prison. Therefore, that is where Cruella would be. **

**I do not own any of the Dalmatian puppies, but I wish I did; they're so cute! Enjoy!**

**Please leave comments or reviews; I would love to know what you think.**

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It had been quite a day; one of the most eventful, terrifying, soot-filled, musical, and heart-felt days that any of them had ever had.

The long journey through London's countryside to outrun Cruella DeVille and her baddies had been quite challenging for the Pongos and their ninety-nine puppies; but with the help of so many kind souls, they all made it safely back home.

It had been a wonderful reunion; the only other time that Pongo ever remembered being that happy was the day of their puppies' birth, and Perdita shared those feelings. The pups had been thrilled to be back home with Nanny, Rodger and Anita again too, the pets that they knew and loved so much. The night only got better when they agreed to keep the eighty-four rescued puppies, making them a large, loving family of one hundred and one.

After all of that, all one hundred and one Dalmatians were soot free and spotty once again and every pup was sleeping peacefully.

Well, almost every pup…

Lucky woke with a start, panting harder than he ever had before; frantically taking in his surroundings and slowly realizing where he was. He was safe. Safe in the small house that he called home and had missed so much. As he came to that conclusion, he closed his eyes and willed his breathing to relax. When he regained control he sat up, opened his eyes again and scanned the sea of spots that surrounded him, until he located the familiar features of Patch.

He sighed and slowly rose to make his way towards his brother. As he crawled his way over his very newly extended family, he prayed that Patch would not be angry with him for waking him; he needed to talk and there was no way he would feel completely safe until he did. After his tedious trek over tails, paws, noses and bellies, Lucky came beside the form of a sleeping Patch. He swallowed the lump of nervousness that was in his throat, lowered his head down next to his brother's ear and whispered, "Patch?"

Patch stirred slightly, but did not wake.

"Patch?" He spoke slightly louder. This time Patch groaned a little, but still his eyes did not open.

Feeling desperate, Lucky nudged Patch's paw with his nose and whimpered, "Patch, please wake up."

At this Patch slowly cracked open his eyes.

"Huh… wha... Lucky!?" He said as his eyes came to focus on the pup in front of him. "What are you doing? Go back to sleep."

"I can't…"

"Sure you can…" Patch yawned. "It's easy just close your eyes and…" his eyes started to drift shut and his head began to slide back down to the floor.

Lucky had to make a choice before Patch fell back to sleep, it was now or never. But at this moment he was beginning to think that this wasn't such a good idea.

"Patch, I had a bad dream!" It came out so fast, so sudden.

His mouth said the words before his mind had time to change them. Why did it have to be this way? Why did asking for help over something as silly as a bad dream have to be so hard? Would Patch even understand?

Patch's tired eyes snapped open at Lucky's sudden statement. Raising his head again he whispered, "A bad dream?"

Lucky just closed his eyes and nodded slowly as if he were ashamed. But little did he know that Patch was quite used to this. Being the oldest of the original fifteen puppies his brothers and sisters often looked up to him. Before this whole event with Cruella occurred, his father had pulled him aside and explained to him that when he and his mother weren't around, he would be the one that his siblings would turn too.

"_I don't mean for this to be pressure son, I just want you all to look after each other; and being the first born, well, a bit more responsibility is usually placed on you. I went through it with my brothers and sisters; and I just want to make sure you're ready for that responsibility."_

"_Don't worry Dad, I can handle it, I'll be the best big brother ever and I'll make you proud!"_

"_You already are, and I already am, Patch."_

He was determined to keep this vow, and because of the threat that that "Crazy Lady" had made against them, he wanted to keep it that much more. Plus, there was the addition of eighty-four brothers and sisters, most of which had all come from separate litters and did not have older siblings to turn to. They were all a family now and he would be there whenever they needed him. But right now, his attention belonged to Lucky.

Patch blinked away his thoughts and memories and focused on the small, black-eared pup beside him.

"Would you like to talk about it?"

"Can we?" Lucky asked with a hint of surprise in his voice.

Patch smiled at his brother's shocked expression. "Sure."

Suddenly a rustling was heard at Patch's right. Turning in that direction, both pups caught sight of their brother, Rolly. Clearly asleep, but deep in a dream that he seemed quite content with. His tail wagged eagerly and his tongue smacked happily as if he was savoring a pleasant taste. Then in a rather sleepy, but happy, tone his dream made itself heard.

"Mmm…Kanine Krunchies…"

"_Of course_." Patch thought to himself rolling his eyes.

"Um…Maybe we should find someplace more quiet." He said turning back to Lucky, who nodded in agreement.

With that, Patch stood, stretched and led the slow crawl to one of the very few empty spaces in the room, under Roger's piano bench. Many of the puppies wanted to sleep near the Christmas tree off in the corner, but most ended up falling asleep where they had sat to listen and sing along to Roger's joyous tunes and carols. The bench had been left empty since no pup wanted to be stepped on.

Once there, Patch sat down and Lucky sat right across from him still looking a bit sad. Patch saw the look on his face and truly felt sorry for him, he had a feeling that he knew what this dream would involve, but for once in his young life, he prayed that he was wrong.

"Okay Luck, so about this bad dream…" he began.

Lucky closed his eyes and hung his head. Remembering the dream that had only happened moments ago.

"Oh Patch, it was t-terrible…" he trembled. "The Devil Woman was a-after us again. We were in the truck again and she was in her s-scary, red car. I s-saw her f-face right in front of me…"

He paused and took in a quivering breath before continuing.

"She was angry, Patch. S-so so angry. Her hair t-turned to fire, and there was f-fire in her eyes too. I-I tried to stay on the truck, I really did. But I-I slipped and was f-falling right towards her; s-she smiled and put up her hands t-to c-catch me. S-she had long, sharp claws and b-big sharp teeth. She got c-closer and closer, a-and and then…"

He stopped. His eyes were squeezed shut, he was trembling and panting, his little heart was racing as if it itself was running from her. Yes, this dream was scary, terrifying beyond words for the young pup. But what scared him the most was that at one point it was real; he could not count them, but he knew it had been only hours ago that it was real. The truck, the car, the case, and worst of all, Cruella were all real. Yes, they had gotten away, but it was so close; too close. So many things could have gone wrong; and most of them he felt would have been his fault.

Patch's small mouth was hanging open at his brother's confession. He had been right; his dream did involve what had recently happened to them. But it was far worse than what he thought he was going to be. To be honest, he had been really scared too. During their time in the old mansion he had had his fair share of bad dreams too. He had woken up during the night panting and his heart pounding. He had been horrified about what would happen to them if his parents or anyone else never found them. Those had been bad nights, he had wanted to stay positive for his brothers and sisters so they wouldn't worry or be frightened. Plus he did not have the heart to wake any of them and admit that he was scared, he felt that doing so would have only made them more frightened to see their big brother so afraid.

"Hey…Hey, Lucky, look at me…" he said in as gentle a voice as his father would have.

Lucky turned his head to face him and opened his eyes that were clearly filled with what Patch recognized as fear and sadness. Patch continued in his gentle voice.

"It's alright; we're safe and together now. It's all over, Lucky. We won't see her again. She's been put in the kennel."

"Kennel?" he asked with a bit less of a tremble.

"Yeah! You know, the place where pets that have been bad are taken. We won't see her again."

Of course Lucky smiled at this, never seeing Cruella DeVille again was more than perfect for him. None of them ever wanted to see her again; and now after talking to Patch about it he did feel better.

But there was still something that was not right with the young pup, and Patch could see that. He tilted his head to study him for a moment. There was still sadness and what appeared to be shamefulness in his usually bright eyes; and as his big brother it was his job to figure out and help him through whatever was troubling him, even if Patch could not quite put his paw on it.

"There's something else, isn't there Lucky?"

He was silent for a minute, answering neither vocally or physically with a nod or shake of his head. If was as if he was trying to decide whether or not to answer, or figure out what was wrong himself. What felt like minutes was really only three seconds before he spoke again.

"Patch, what's a runt?"

"_Oh no, not this_," Patch thought, "_anything but this_." That word, that one word that he had to call him. Patch remembered the anger that he felt when that baddie, Horace, had called his little brother that. It was bad enough that he pushed Lucky away from the television, but to call him a _runt _on top of that was just too far. He had remembered that his mother had gotten upset with him for calling the foe on "Thunderbolt" names, but when that man had insulted Lucky, he could not help it. No, Horace had not been very threatened by him, but that did not stop Patch from calling him everything that he had called the villain on their favorite show.

They never used that term. Never. Not his father, not his mother, not Roger or Anita nor Nanny. None of them ever saw Lucky as a runt. It didn't matter if he was the last born, he was no less a member of the family. But even though Lucky had never heard the word before, that did not stop him from knowing and seeing that he was the smallest, Patch had to look down slightly to meet Lucky's eyes and Lucky had to tilt his head up a bit to see him. There was a clear difference in their heights; and, even though Patch hated to admit it, Lucky was the weakest physically. He nearly died at birth. It wasn't his fault that he was small. To Patch and his whole family he was perfect just the way he was. But that did not mean that Lucky thought the same.

"Lucky…" he began, but he was not sure what he wanted to say. He was not sure of what he could say. Nothing he said could change the meaning of that word.

"It means small, doesn't it? Small and weak." He said with a bit of bitterness in his voice that Patch had never heard in his little brother before.

Patch still had no idea of what to say; if he said yes he feared that Lucky would take it the wrong way and think that _he_ thought of him as that. But if he said no then Lucky would know that he was lying and demand to know the truth. Oh, how he wanted to comfort his brother and tell him that it was not true, that no one saw him like that, but how could he? How could he make him believe him?

"That's all I've ever been. And that's all I'll ever be." He said his head hung nearly to his front paws.

Patch could not take it anymore, he could not let Lucky think of himself like that. "That's not true, Lucky!"

"How can it not be!?" Lucky got to his feet and demanded so suddenly, it made Patch flinch in surprise. He really did feel bad that Lucky still had to tilt his head up to look him in the face. This was only going to add fuel to his fire that burned inside him.

"It would have been my fault if that lady would have caught us."

Now that, Patch did not expect that to come out of his brother's mouth. "What are you talking about? How so?"

Lucky narrowed his eyes, but Patch had a feeling that he did so more to himself than towards him.

"Dad had to carry me when we had to walk on the ice instead of the snow." Slowly his eyes began to soften, not with happiness, but with sadness and his mouth began to quiver making his speech shake.

"I s-slowed us d-down when we h-had to go through t-that snow storm because I w-was too weak and c-cold and…" he started to sniffle because at this point he was holding back tears that Patch could see gathering in his eyes making them glitter and shine.

"A-and it was m-my fault that C-Cruella spotted us w-when I f-fell in the sn-snow…" By now the tears began to stream down his face.

"I-it w-would have b-been my fault if-if she would h-have c-caught us. M-Mum and D-Dad should have n-named m-me Un-Lucky be-because that's all th-that I am. Th-that man w-was right; I-I r-really am just a r-runt." He sat back down and sobbed at last.

He lowered his head and turned it to his left as if he were trying to hide the fact that he was crying. He sniffled and whimpered as his whole small body shook with every sob.

Patch just sat there with his mouth agape in shock. He had no idea that Lucky felt that way about their whole ordeal. How could he possibly think that? Patch found himself slowly shaking his head at the very idea of Lucky thinking that he was to blame for all of that. The very thought was bringing tears to his own eyes. How could this sweet, little pup, _his _little brother think of himself in that way? He had to make this right.

Patch slowly got to his feet and made his way towards Lucky, whose eyes were still closed but still dripped tears. He sat down in front of him, lowered his head and placed his nose under Lucky's chin to guide his face back to look straight at him. His eyes remained closed as his sobs still racked his body.

"Lucky…" Patch whispered gently as he removed his nose. "Listen…" he was pleased that Lucky did not turn away again and even more so that he opened his eyes that were now slightly red.

"None of that is true, _you_ may think it is; but it's not. Not at all. Lucky, we all had trouble on the ice. Do you know how much trouble _I _had walking on the ice? I couldn't even talk because I had to focus on what I was doing." He remembered that all too well, Penny had been excited since they tricked the baddies; he had smiled at her but was more concerned about where his paws should go.

"And hey, that snow storm was really bad. We were all cold and growing weak and tired. I was so cold I thought my spots would freeze off." Lucky did smirk at this through his tears, which made Patch happy. He didn't go into the detail though that before he fell asleep in the barn he did count all his spots, just to be sure. "Come to think of it Lucky, don't you think that if it hadn't been for you that collie would not have caught up to us? We would have froze if we were out there much longer."

Lucky seemed to consider this for a moment. Was that true? What would have happened if the collie had not found them? "Really?" he asked just to be sure.

"Yeah! Who knew that he was looking for us? Pretty lucky if you ask me." Patch grinned, Lucky's sobs had subsided and new tears no longer fell.

"And Lucky, snow is snow; it fell on you I saw it from the truck, you could not have helped that, it could have happened to anyone. And wasn't it because of you that Nanny knew it was us. You were the only one not covered in soot, she knew it was you; and because of that our pets realized we were home. Again I think that's pretty lucky."

"I guess so…" he smiled slightly. "But why do I have to be so small?"

Patch grinned, "You won't be small forever, Lucky. One day you'll grow big and strong like Thunderbolt." He looked down at his little brother and realized for maybe the millionth time in his young life how much Lucky actually looked like their father. "Or maybe even Dad."

"Yeah, like Dad." He agreed with a yawn.

Seeing that yawn made Patch yawn too. Now they were both very tired, neither of them was sure how long they had been up, but they didn't care. It was good to have this time. Lucky felt better than he had in days and Patch was just happy that his brother was happy.

Lucky scanned the sea of spots one last time before his eyelids began to slide shut.

"You know what Patch?" He said as he curled down as close to his brother as he could, nearly making a still sitting Patch topple over. "I'm lucky because I have the best family and big brother ever."

This made Patch grin so big his cheeks got sore. That was all he ever wanted to be, and he was happy to know that he was doing something right. He turned his to his left and looked down at Lucky who was already fast asleep. No more bad dreams were going to bother him tonight, because if they did, they would have to deal with Patch. No one was ever going to hurt his family, and no one was going to hurt his youngest brother.

"You know what?" Patch said mostly to himself since Lucky was already asleep. "_I'm_ the lucky one because I have the best family…" He yawned for one last time, snuggled down next to Lucky, closed his eyes and whispered "and the best little brother ever."

With that both pups fell asleep safe and together under the piano bench.

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**Thanks so much for reading! This story could not have been created without the help of Violets and Lilies, who proof read and corrected all of my silly mistakes. **

**Thanks so much again V&L, I could not have done it without you. You're the greatest!**

**And you are all the greatest too for reading! Thanks!**


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